Hi Digger, and welcome back!!

We absolutely have no problem with you asking for advice with your friend's pool, maybe after they discover how good it can look they'll be more inclined to join us themselves!!

I don't know the gallonage of that pool, but if you can give us length, width, and water depth, we can figure it out. If indeed it is 5000 gallons, then each quart of 6% bleach will raise the chlorine by 3 ppm. Assuming the water is still clear, they will need to keep the chlorine between 3-6 ppm until they can get stabilizer in the water. Until the stabilizer is there, the sun will eat up the chlorine very quickly, so they're going to have to add bleach 2-3 times a day to keep it from going below 3 ppm. They can go ahead and add stabilizer to the pool, either through the skimmer if there is one, or by hanging it in a sock in front of a return. Target about 30 ppm CYA, for now. Once that's done, I would go ahead and run another set of tests on pH and alk, just to see what needs to be done about them.

Janet